PH345: Winter 2025
Which color appears most often?
Which color appears most often?
Aesthetics or encodings are ways that we map data to visual properties of the plot and include position, color, length, shape, area, volume
Choice of aesthetics helps or hinders your audience’s understanding of what the data are showing
One proportion for each of five groups (A-E)
For each of 9 plots, guess group B’s numerical proportion and rank. Enter your guesses on this google form:
Take away: some aesthetics communicate data better than others
Figure 14 from Mackinlay (1986)
Sr. Director at Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
Formerly Creative Director of the Broad Institute of MIT and adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Art as Applied to Medicine at Hopkins
Published monthly column on data visualization in Nature Methods journal from 2010-2012
Different visual variables encoding the same five values.
Figure 1c from Wong (2010a)
What is the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 over time?
Figure 6 from Cleveland and McGill (1985)
What is the relative size of big vs small circle?
14x
How does distance between lines vary?
it’s constant
Figure 1c from Wong (2010a)
Figure 15 from Mackinlay (1986)
Lines in graphs create clear connection. Enclosure is an effective way to draw attention to a group of objects.
Figure 2b from Wong (2010b)
What regions of the US experienced greatest population growth?
Figure 4.2, Wilke (2019)
How do Malawi’s teachers positive teaching practices compare to those of other Sub-Saharan African countries?
Figure 3.2, Asim (2024)
How do entrace and pass rates for Primary School Leaving Certificate Examinations (PSLCE) compare between boys and girls in Malawi?
Figure 5.2, Asim (2024)
How do entrace and pass rates for Primary School Leaving Certificate Examinations (PSLCE) compare between boys and girls in Malawi?
Figure 5.2, Asim (2024)
Ultimately, girls are 6 percent less likely than boys to enter the Primary School Leaving Certificate Examinations (PSLCE) and 13 percent less likely than boys to pass (refer to figure 5.2, panel b).
Number of deployments is calculated as average for Bangladeshi, Indian, Nepali, Pakistani, and Sri Lankan labor migrants in their respective top five destination countries… remittances are defined as total amount of remittances that flow into Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan.
Figure 3.4, Ahmed (2022)
Questions:
Plotting lines emphasizes change between points: the change in the annual growth rate. How easy is this to interpret?
No Spice: Make an approximate version of my recreation of Figure 3.4 on slide 33: focus just on the structure
Weak Sauce: No menu options today…
Medium Spice: Make an approximate version of my ‘% Change from 2006’ plot on slide 35: focus just on the structure
Yoga Flame: Make an exact replicate of my recreation of Figure 3.4 on slide 33. I’m looking for perfection!
Dim Mak: Make an exact replicate of my ‘% Change from 2006’ plot on slide 35. I’m looking for perfection!
Ahmed, S.A. and Bossavie, L. eds., 2022. Toward Safer and More Productive Migration for South Asia. World Bank Publications. website
Asim, S. and Gera, R.C., 2024. What Matters for Learning in Malawi? Evidence from the Malawi Longitudinal School Survey. World Bank Publications-Books. website
Cleveland, W.S. and McGill, R., 1985. Graphical perception and graphical methods for analyzing scientific data. Science, 229(4716), pp.828-833.
Mackinlay, J., 1986. Automating the design of graphical presentations of relational information. Acm Transactions On Graphics (Tog), 5(2), pp.110-141.
Wehrli, U., 2003. Tidying Up Art. Prestel Publishing.
Wilke, C.O., 2019. Fundamentals of data visualization: a primer on making informative and compelling figures. O’Reilly Media.
Wong, B., 2010a. Design of data figures. Nature Methods, 7(9), pp.665-666.
Wong, B., 2010b. Points of view: Gestalt principles (Part 1). Nature Methods, 7(11), p.863.